Home Renovations and May wrap-up

Voluntary and involuntary renovations

One of my resolutions was to do at least one home renovation and I guess I have completed this involuntarily.

So I suppose I can write about this because it wiped out a huge chunk of my birthday funds >:\

You know, a leaking hot water tank can be a pain. This happened to us 11 years ago. I think it was about 6am in the morning we heard this huge explosion sound, and then we saw that the bottom of our water tank had blown itself off from the pressure inside. Now that’s one heck of a bang, woke and scared the crap out of us. Long story short, we got it replaced.

A year ago apparently there was some leakage with our tank, but then it stopped, held off for a year and one month, and then the water tank started dripping. No matter how much water and pressure we released from the tank, the leak just got worse. It was time to replace the damn thing.

Metaphorically… and literally.

I was surprised that the top of the tank had water marks and was rusting! I would have only expected problems with the bottom since that’s where the most pressure is. I guess you learn something new every day!

For those who don’t really know much about this, or haven’t lived in an apartment long enough to know, these things happen. Water tanks are supposed to last about 10 years, so we got pretty much its full life expectancy. The funniest thing was that unlike last time, there was no explosion (thankfully), and it happened around the same time again but on a day that I coincidentally didn’t have to go to work. Talk about timing.

Anyway, I called up a place and they were able to give me the price of replacing a tank without any hesitation. Took it as it was, agreed to have someone come over within the next 2 hours, and simply waited about an hour and someone came. He emptied out the tank, removed it, grabbed a new one from his truck or whatever it was, replaced it, and even replaced an old leaking tap for us. Took a bit longer than expected (about 1.5 hours), but he was still professional, quite gentle (some plumbers like to chuck their stuff everywhere and leave scratches on your tiles *cough*previous plumber*cough*) and he was well equipped since it seemed everything was in his car. He didn’t leave a mess behind, so I must say he was very pleasant.

You really need to release the pressure in the tank by lifting up the valve every few months and you will get the full 10 years’ lifespan out of your tank. If you do the math it’s less than $100 a year for a hot water tank, but paying in one go really makes you cringe a lot.

Pre-birthday celebrations

My friend took me to a place which I will call TBD. Not to be decided; just clarifying.

I can’t really comment on the food except that it was quite pricey and the portions were… well… But I appreciated the effort put in to book the place (which had 2 rounds: we were booked in for the 8:30pm session but arrived much earlier – thankfully we were still given a table because we would have starved).

These were pan fried dumplings with sweet chilli sauce or something like that. It was probably the tastiest thing we had there, but it was $3 per dumpling and there were a total of 3. $3 each! You can buy a loaf of bread for $3

I apologise for the photo quality from here on… we were literally eating in the dark and we used the torch on our phones to give a bit of light on our food.

Raw beetroot, almond, sesame and something else salad. This was alright as well. Texture was good and the seasoning was good.

This was my friend’s beef and cheese. There’s actually not a lot here,  but it was a decent sized portion.

This was my fish in a sea of rather fishy seaweed. I know it’s seaweed, but I’ve never tasted such fishy seaweed before… in fact, I never knew seaweed could be fishy. Maybe it was the combination with the peas? I don’t really know. You can probably see that piece of fish in the centre left – there were a grand total of only 3 pieces in this whole dish, and each piece is no bigger than the size of a medium sized thumb. I didn’t want to finish the salad because of the fishiness, but I did it anyway because my friend paid for it.

Needless to say, we finished everything, but still had plenty of room in our stomachs.

Then we stuffed ourselves with 3 scoops of icecream.

Geisha-san

Consumerist at heart

For those who haven’t realised, just tuned in, or have been following me for a while and figured this out, I seem to always have an annual birthday present for myself. Did I ever write why? I don’t ever think so.

As I already made my major purchase this year (next major one I will need to wait until Christmas to justify) this year’s birthday present was broken up into several parts. Instead of having one item I opted to go for smaller items because I find joy in quantity over quality sometimes 😉 I could have afforded something simple but more expensive if it weren’t for that damned water tank. That literally wiped out my cash on hand, so I’ve been going povo for the past week. I’m currently low on funds because I’m now being paid monthly, not weekly. This is something I am not used to, and it is just new to me. I hate to sound like this, but I can’t wait until I get paid (actually everyone looks forward to it). It just feels like without my pay, I can’t do anything.

Anyway, digressions aside, the theme for this year was simply ticking things off the wishlist.

For these images I have tried a different photographic setup rather than taking photos on the floor. I’m not sure if you will enjoy it more this way, but I had fun testing out my options. My new photographic setup consists of a portable tent and a softbox for speedlite.

New Era baseball cap by Kenzo. I hardly buy new season items, but I’ve always wanted a cap for those random moments when you just need one. It’s a bit too big, but I figured with the available sizes, a size or two smaller doesn’t make much difference. Either way, still comfortable.

One of the first things on my list was a pair of Chanel ear studs. I know, I know, I said that I wasn’t going to buy any more, but they are pretty and shiny things are always desirable. Hopefully these won’t have any problems. Like last time, I went for a classic style rather than a seasonal one. I had always originally wanted a pair of Chanel logo studs with crystals in them, but never really got around to finding anything similar. Like what I have previously written, there have been instances where I have heard from others about the crystals falling out and stuff. I hope that these won’t, so fingers crossed! I look after my jewellery so it shouldn’t be the case. If something happens, then there’s something terribly wrong with the quality of Chanel’s fashion jewellery.

I went to the Chanel boutique on a Sunday afternoon and I must say they were so busy. Busy serving heaps of people just enquiring about stuff, but nobody really buying much. The prices lately have gone up, and I think their prices are pretty ridiculous. Even my earrings were more than what I had expected. There were a pair of pretty simple studs with the chain pattern on the logo (so no crystals = less chance of any problems), but they were more expensive than the pair that I ended up buying. I don’t get their pricing sometimes. I don’t get how I have friends who tell me they buy these bargain Chanel earrings. WHERE? HOW? I never encounter anything like that.

After waiting an infinity and a half I finally managed to get served and it took me probably less than 5 minutes to buy. Disappointed because they didn’t ask for my details (which are in the computer) to put on the receipt. They also changed their packaging, and the box is not as sturdy as before, although the interior seems fancier. Overall, I hate shopping at Chanel. 1/3 times I only got really good customer service, the other two times at the same boutique is just utter crap. You wait so long, for nothing. Everything’s expensive, but only worth it because of the brand. I don’t even know why I am complaining, but it just doesn’t go down well.

I finally bought the necklace that I had originally wanted mentioned in this post here. I was pleased to see that the colours on the pendant aren’t as strong or crazy as I imagined it to be, but the only problem I have is the length of the chain. Because it’s a bit short, it makes the orb sit funny so you keep seeing the bottom of the orb rather than the top.

This was a bit random – it wasn’t really for my birthday, but it was perfect timing (ish). I had wanted the Alexander McQueen scarf because it’s just such a classic. The colour I wanted it in was either a beige, soft pink, purple or the black and gold (which I convinced my ex-colleague to purchase because I sincerely thought it was such a killer classic combo), but never really saw the need for it. I have a few scarves, and Sydney isn’t really that cold to the point that you need several to go around (even though I do have several to go around). I try my best to buy accessories that look different and are different colours and sizes (I do that for my bags as well… only I stick with similar colours) so I can mix and match depending on my needs.

Anyway, each time I saw the scarf I kept telling myself that I didn’t need it. I watched it drop from $400 to $300 and now to $240 or so. I don’t understand why it drops in price like that, given it is such a classic, but the final straw was that I could purchase it for a price I thought was super good and would never ever encounter such a price ever again. It’s a bit like buying shares at the critical moment – so I just went for it.

Post-birthday celebrations

I’m thankful because at work they surprised me with a cake. They didn’t have to, since I have only been there for… not long, but they did. Thank you! And this time it’s a bit different, tiramisu!

Self photo for May

These are getting lazier and lazier, but it must be because I am getting uglier and uglier.

Yes, I recycled the cake decoration, because I can’t resist studs! (Interpret that however you like)

Overall, nothing too special for May. Look forward to my next scheduled post. I will be changing my scheduled posts to go live every Friday, so if that suits you, tune in on Fridays. Until next blog!